Author Archives: pnj22

Galileo and Global Warming

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If someone had asked me before the talk with Gregory Sloan, I doubt I ever could’ve found a link between Galileo and global warming. However, after listening to the professor talk, he connects to dots between a religious persecution on science to the modern day special interest against global warming.

Centuries ago, Galileo discovered that Earth was not in fact the center of the universe. His theory was that the sun was the center and all the planets orbited it. The church didn’t respond too kindly to this because it completely contradicted scripture and challenged their ideals. Eventually, the Roman Catholic church put Galileo on trial and threatened to exile him if he didn’t take back his scientific theories. Eventually, he retracted. This was only the tip of the iceberg of people in power challenging proven scientific facts because it conflicts with their personal interest.

This brings us to global warming. Whether someone believes in it or not, global warming has (according to the professor) been completely proven. However, the country, and the world, doesn’t really seem to be doing anything about it. This is because the corporate world doesn’t like to be environmentally regulated and are throwing everything they can against the cause. I rarely give thought to global warming because I’m usually preoccupied with prelims and what I’m going to eat for dinner, but for once I sat and thought about the consequences of our actions, and why we aren’t doing too much about it.

History repeats itself, and it has been displayed over and over again that change takes time and is usually followed by a facepalm of “why didn’t we do this sooner”. I hope eventually we trust science and change our ways for the better.

Breaking the Gender Box

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I attended the “Break the Box” event because my friend asked me to for her Intergroup Dialogue class and because it happened to be Rose Scholar event. However, I’m glad I attended because it was very informative and enlightening regardless of what was in it for me.

We started by giving our names and facts about ourselves, and we told to noticed where the girls and boys had placed themselves in the room. For the most part, there were boys on one side and girls on the other (I think it was just a coincidence, but still interesting). Next, we looked at slides that displayed adjectives under the heading “What is a Man?” or “What is a Woman?”. These slides played to obvious stereotypes, striking conversation about how under Man it said aggressive and experienced and for Woman it said weak and innocent. In my opinion, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that some of these words deserved to be on the slides and were mainly there to strike an argument. However, its hard to overlook that in some way or another, everyone has experienced bias based off gender. Personally, I don’t like to be seen as weak, and I don’t like aggressive people in general, so I had a hard time making arguments about the adjective

We also drew cards out of a Woman and Man box, each card saying a career that is either dominated by men or women. I again thought that these were pushing some sort of reaction, when women had careers like “caregiver” or “stripper” and men had cards like “lawyer”, “doctor”, or “pilot”. I found this extremely unfair, because although men may dominate the air, what about garbageman, janitor, or jobs like that. Why only show the less respectable jobs of women and only the good careers for men. Men also work jobs they might not be proud of or didn’t take years of school

All in all, I felt many good points were raised and I discussed interesting topics (like what toys did you play with as a child and how did that shape your future, or how did teachers teach you growing up differently than the other gender), but while some people might think that women are weak and men are aggressive, I hope that generations in the future can progress and men and women can reach full equality.

BTS with the Chef!

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I really loved hearing the head of Cornell’s food program and out very own Chef Daniel discuss all the behind the scenes details about what we eat on campus. I eat at Rose House almost every night, and its very interesting to hear what goes behind making my daily meal. I heard of the many things Cornell does to manage waster, which I find very important because a campus with 20,000 students must waste a ton of food (and I know I throw away too much food from time to time in the dining hall) For example, Chef Daniel will stand by the food belt and see what students throw away or clean their plate of, so he can know what to keep or chuck from the menu. I think this is a great step, because if the students are all hating one thing, it would be a waste to continue serving it and throwing it away, or let it go to waste at the end of the night and end up in the garbage. Also, Cornell employs a composting service that comes and weighs the amount of food we compost every week so we can track how much food that wasn’t eating isn’t going totally to waste.

Listening to Mr. Muscente and the Chef, you also start to understand the scale of the operation. On any given night, the dining halls on West serve 400-600 people (and taco tuesdays do a killing with 800 people). Also, you see how hard they work to accommodate everyones schedule, having a dinner hall open at 4:00p.m. and open until 9:30. It is nice to know that at any time I can get dinner.

Also, during the question and answers section of the talk, one person raised their hand and asked if the dining hall could move the cookies from right under the fruit tree, because they’re very likely to mindlessly grab a cookie while they wait in line or on the way out. I found this to be a FANTASTIC idea because I can eat 3 cookies before I even know it, even if I didn’t feel like dessert. Two days later, the cookies were moved, and I haven’t eaten one since! All in all, I had a great time hearing all about the food I eat every day.

When Glass Sculptures Aren’t Just Pretty

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I attended Drew Harvell’s lecture on Cornell’s large collection of glass sea animal sculptures. According to Harvell, Cornell’s first President commissioned glass art from famous glass sculptors by the name of Blaschka. Our collection of water invertebrates sat unnoticed for over 100 years before they were rediscovered and repaired. They’ve been used in Harvell’s new documentary about how these sculptures were a ‘time capsule’ of water creatures over 100 years ago. Not only were the sculptures beautiful, but also helped professors here identify creatures that haven’t been seen a very long time.  seaglass1

I was extremely shocked to see how realistic the glass sculptures looked! It was also refreshing to see Harvell use forgotten art for a scientific purpose.

 

 

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This was absolutely my favorite one. I never knew glass sculptures could be so intricate and accurate. If you ever have time, you should look up the collection online or see it in Mann library

International Crime

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I attended the talk led by Jens David Ohlins, and it was by far the most informal talk so far. Ohlins was sitting in a chair, not standing and presenting, and it made the talk more approachable. This led to a dialogue between Ohlins and several of the people who attended. The talk was opened by asking us to text the name of some international criminals so it would appear on a polling question in the front of the room. Names like Kony, Osama and Hussein showed up. Ohlins prompted us on a current United States international cirme scandal, in which the United States attacked an Afghani Hospital, killing 22 civilians and injuring many. He wanted to know, in war times, is this illegal? Most people would immediately say, no, you can’t just kill innocent people, but I found out that in war times, it is law that civilians may be killed as collateral damage, as long as the deaths are proportionate to the target. In this case, is seemed clear that this wasn’t quite proportionate.

However, this brought up the moral question, what is proportionate? Ohlins asked us about the atomic bomb, and the United State’s use of it in Japan. Killing thousands seemed justified because it essentially won the war, but what if they killed 5 people for just one soldier? Or what about 200 people for Osama Bin Laden. Its hard to guess what the threat of a high level criminal is worth in civilian lives, and continues to be a grey area in international law. Personally, I think war is ugly, and will always be ugly. Unfortunately, innocent people die in the line of fire, be it accidental of not, and I don’t always think its “collateral damage”. Also, it is hard to judge because you view the other side as the enemy, and you want your own country to win. You just have to hope that eventually, this conflict will come to and end.

A REAL background in American Indians

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This week, I attended the discussion led by Eric Cheyfitz on all things American Indian.

Professor Cheyfitz started the lecture with a brief history in the stealing of land from the Indians, then asked the crowd how many of us learned about that in primary school. Along with the majority of the room, I hadn’t had much education in American Indian brutality. Cheyfitz argued that historians who call slavery America’s “primal sin” are overlooking the mass movement and theft from the Indians, and I would have to agree. During the Indian takeover, school children were forced to wear Western clothing and speak english or have their tongue put in between a clothespin. Cheyfitz used this point to argue the definition of genocide. This got me thinking, we know genocide to be the mass killings of one group of people, but trying to completely wipe a groups history, isn’t that genocide too? These facts brought Cheyfitz visible annoyance, but you wonder, what are we to do hundreds of years after the fact. His solution? Recognization. I’m not so sure thats the best idea

Cheyfitz went on to ask the audience how many of us knew that Cornell was on “Cayuga land”, which was originally owned by the Cayuga Indians. After hearing what he already knew (most of us had no idea) he argued that Cornell should recognize the original owners of the land. In order to do this, Cornell should start commencement and other events by sharing that we are on Cayuga land. This was one thing I didn’t necesarily agree with. After hearing about the struggles the Indians have faced, you look back at history, seeing it a little darker. However, I don’t think its imperative that at every event Cornell hosts, they bring the topic back up again.

Its up to you how you think past grievances should be handled, is giving a little money and allowing Indians to run casinos enough, or should their land be recognized across the country? I don’t know if there ever will be a way to “fix” what happened back then, but I do know people like Professor Cheyfitz are doing what they can to educate people so they can make their own informed decision.

Rose’s First Art Show

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Picking the first event to attend wasn’t easy, but i’m really glad I chose this one (not just because I got to get in the dinner line before everyone else). It was held in the Rose Dining hall before house dinner and featured art from Nicholas Carbonaro, an Ithaca college graduate. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from an art show in a dining hall, but I was extremely surprised.  There was live music, food, (wine which I wasn’t allowed to have), and interesting art.

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This piece was by far my favorite, mainly because I really identify with it. It was like looking into a mirror after a long day of school and a huge dinner.  One of her(?) fake eyelashes fell onto her body and i’m like I feel you girl (?). I include the question marks after pronouns because the artist stressed that his art was gender neutral after growing up in a time when changing genders wasn’t so popular. After hearing that the art made a lot more sense. That was another thing I really liked about this experience, hearing what the artist thought. you can go to museum and interpret all you want, but you can’t really know what the artist meant unless they tell you first hand.

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I would sat this one was the strangest piece, probably because all the other pieces were flat and colorful and this was outward and beige. I wanted to touch this one. so. badly. I held off out of respect (and because the artist was right there).

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I’m including this one because it was the largest and also to give those who didn’t go a sense of the show. I would suggest all rose scholars to go to an art show the next time it comes up, I will too.